Present disclosure relates to a zoom lens and to an imaging apparatus that includes a zoom lens. Specifically, the present disclosure relates to a zoom lens that is suitably used in an electronic camera such as a digital video camcorder and a digital still camera and has reduced size and improved performance. The present disclosure also relates to an imaging apparatus that includes such a zoom lens.
Recently, a digital camcorder, a digital still camera, etc. that use a solid-state imaging device such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and a CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) have been spread rapidly. Such spread of the digital camera, etc. has led to increasing demand for a zoom lens that has high mobility and high performance suitable for the large number of pixels.
In particular, a user has been expecting to have, at a reasonable price, a compact and high-performance zoom lens that has a half angle of view in a wide end state of around 37 degrees, a zoom magnification of about 2.5, and an open F-number of about F3.5. In a negative-positive-negative-positive zoom type in which a negative lens group, a positive lens group, a negative lens group, and a positive lens group are arranged in order from an object side, a front lens diameter (a diameter of a most-object-sided lens) is easier to be reduced, and off-axial aberration is favorably corrected by arranging the negative lens groups in the front and the back of an aperture. Also, such a zoom type is known as a zoom type that matches the above-described user's needs since the most-image-sided positive lens group suppresses an angle of off-axial light rays entering an imaging plane, and shading is reduced in the wide end state (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2012-58406 (JP2012-58406A) and 2012-133230 (JP2012-133230A)).